


Where the Poppies Blow

by songlin



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Smut, Veterans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 00:55:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songlin/pseuds/songlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you were to ask Sherlock Holmes what the absolute best sensation in the world is, he would not be able to tell you with a gun to his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Poppies Blow

**Author's Note:**

> Vaguely in the universe of The Flower That Blooms Today/The Closest to Heaven, but also a functional standalone. Thanks again to my fabulous beta Cin!
> 
> Title from In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, the poem that inspired the use of poppies as the symbol of Remembrance Day.

If you were to ask Sherlock Holmes what the absolute best sensation in the world is, he would not be able to tell you with a gun to his head. He feels quite a lot, and so there are too many choices. There’s John’s lips on the pulse-point in his neck. His blue silk robe when he’s wearing it and nothing else. John’s breath hot and quick against his face. The weight of heavy wool on his shoulders. John’s teeth on his ear. Cold baths on hot days. John’s voice against his skin, rough and wanting.

Currently in the lead by a small margin is the scar on John’s shoulder, as felt by his fingertips or tongue or anything, really. John’s scar would just be any other scar, although John’s and a thing that made him _John_ and thus still interesting, if it were not also the physical evidence of John being good.

He says as much, in bed one lazy morning, when Sherlock is sprawled out on his back and John is resting mostly on top of him with his head on Sherlock’s chest. They are both naked, as neither of them particularly felt like putting clothes back on again after last night. They are basking in the glow of early morning arousal, when you’re not quite awake enough for sex but are half in the mood for it. It's a lovely, cozy sort of mood, entailing a lot of cuddling and clumsy kissing and fingers whose fine motor skills haven’t quite warmed up to consciousness yet. Sherlock’s are on John’s shoulder, tracing the swirls of scar tissue wreathing the small circle of tightly stretched, pink-white skin where a bullet had brought John to Sherlock.

“He was very young wasn’t he?” Sherlock asks softly. “And you cared very much about him.”

John inhales sharply, but doesn’t move. Sherlock can sense he is treading on dangerous ground.

“Did he live?” Sherlock asks.

“Are you looking to brag about how you figured that out, or do you actually want to know?”

“Mm...bit of both.”

“Go on, then.”

“Angle indicates the shot was fired from behind and slightly above you from a distance of at least a hundred yards. No chance you’d expose your back to an enemy unless you were distracted, such as by a wounded comrade, and one who would’ve mattered. You’ll risk your life for strangers, but not that eagerly, not with that kind of flagrant disregard for your personal welfare. If it were a commanding officer or someone with a rank similar to yours, you would’ve proceeded with more caution. They would’ve told you to, and you would’ve respected it. So it must have been someone young.”

John chuckles ruefully. “Spot on, as always.”

Sherlock allows John his moment of silence. He may need to collect himself; he understands people do.

“It was this American kid, fresh out of college. Enlisted to get his tuition paid. A lot of them do and don’t realize what they’re signing up for.”

“Did he?”

John considers this. “No, I don’t think so. But he was brave enough. Scared stupid, of course, but brave. He’d been there a month when he took a piece of shrapnel to the side of the head.” John shakes his head. “He lived, mostly. They said he’d never wake up. When he finally did, they said he’d never speak or walk or recognize his mum. He managed those eventually.”

“Was he worth it?”

“Yes,” says John immediately. He turns his face in towards Sherlock’s chest. Sherlock feels slightly robbed, but he’s willing to suffer that for John, if that’s what he needs. “He came to see me in hospital, when I was laid up with the second infection and he was in physical therapy. He couldn’t talk yet, but when he saw me he took my good hand and shook it until he cried.”

Sherlock has nothing to say to this, so he cranes his head awkwardly down and kisses the scar on John’s shoulder.

“Don’t,” says John. “Don’t--not that. There.”

Sherlock frowns. “Why?”

“You--it’s not a--good thing.”

_“Wrong,”_ Sherlock says, very fierce. John starts a bit, which is probably bad, but Sherlock can’t help it. That is just-- _too_ _wrong_. “It is the _best_ thing. Nothing has ever been better than _that scar right there._ It is the fucking quintessence of Good Things, and don’t you _ever_ say otherwise. Don’t you _dare.”_

John twists his head up so he can look at Sherlock. His lips are parted in a small smile. “You shouldn’t.”

“I _should_. What should I?”

“You shouldn’t--worship me like that. I’m not that good.”

Sherlock shrugs and smirks, because this is an argument he knows he will never win through stubbornness. “You’re better than I.”

John grins. Before Sherlock has time to register the quicksilver shift in muscle, John has rolled over, slid up his body and is kissing Sherlock like he’s bringing him back to life. It is an interesting development, though neither unexpected nor unwelcome, and he groans with relief into John’s mouth.

This proves too much for John’s already well-tried self-control. When a man wakes up to his lover’s mouth on his shoulder and follows it up with some exceptionally pleasant cuddling and tops it all off with a round of recounting highly emotional moments in his life, there are certain acts of intimacy that go from being wants to needs.

“On your front,” he murmurs, and Sherlock shivers.

He turns over. John breathes into the nape of his neck, hands at Sherlock’s waist, and kisses the top of his spine.

“Oh,” Sherlock sighs. “Yes, go on.”

He can feel John fumbling blindly for the bottle of lube. He cannot look away, as his mouth is otherwise occupied at Sherlock’s right scapula. Sherlock, for his part, has his face in the pillows. He’s so vocal in the mornings that it’s borderline alarming. John loves it, which is one of the reasons Sherlock absolutely _must_ keep it down, or else this will not last at all.

At last John breathes a little “ha!” and pulls away, leaving Sherlock bare and exposed to the cold morning air.

“Hurry up,” Sherlock growls, then gasps, because there is a slick finger teasing into him.

He has never been able to get past how good this is, when John’s finger is working into him past the second knuckle and curving. Maybe this is the best after all. But then again, no.

“More,” he says with what little air he can get in.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” John says, and pushes in with a second finger.

“Fantastic,” Sherlock breathes, dropping his head between his arms and spreading his thighs wider. “Oh--yes, like _that--”_

Two fingers are better than one, because with two John can curl them just so, one at a time, fluttering them inside of him so Sherlock arches and moans, pushing back, wanting to know where and how he can get _more_. John is kissing him desperately and he’s rubbing a hand up and down the side of Sherlock’s ribcage. Oddly, it’s that hand on his side that is the closest to being too much, so he reaches back and moves it to his hip. John seems to understand.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, into Sherlock up to his hand. “So beautiful it’s fucking _painful_ sometimes, you know that?”

“Hurry up,” says Sherlock, eyes squeezed shut and voice just _this_ shy of pleading.

Sherlock never begs, and he wonders with a brief moment of terror if John is going to make him. He doesn’t think he can, not yet at least, not without it hurting too much for him. Thankfully, John is very clever in the ways of people (even Sherlocks) as well as being very good.

He makes a little broken sound when John’s fingers leave him, just for a second, and presses his face into the pillows.

_“John!”_

“Don’t worry,” he says, putting a reassuring hand on the small of Sherlock’s back.

_I’m not,_ Sherlock thinks, which might be a lie; he hasn’t time to explore it. Then the head of John’s cock is pressing against him and he has to fight not to lift his tailbone and impale himself _right fucking now,_ because John is leading this morning and so John will set the pace. He dearly wishes he were on his back. The only thing more beautiful than John Watson’s face when Sherlock pushes home is John Watson when he gives in to his baser instincts and buries himself to the hilt inside of Sherlock, and Sherlock wants to _watch_. But again, this morning is for John.

Not that Sherlock’s getting nothing out of it. In fact, he’s halfway there already. He’s gritting his teeth and clenching his hands trying to anchor himself, tether himself to his body before his mind floats away backwards and into John.

But wouldn’t it be a wonderful place for it to live?

“Come on,” he coaxes him. “I want you to, I want it.”

John groans. “God, _Sherlock,_ I’m _trying_ to take it slow.”

Sherlock grimaces and arches his back, because John _is_ going slowly, _achingly_ so, and Sherlock is not a patient man. John’s not even moving yet, not really, barring the little twitches that are mostly the product of one or both of them trembling.

“I could stay like this for _years.”_

His voice is so drugged-sounding that Sherlock _has_ to see, so he cranes his head round to look. John’s head is tipped back, his eyes squeezed shut, a bright blush across his cheeks and his lips parted. Sherlock twists his head back and pushes his face into the pillows again with a frustrated groan.

“Oh, don’t, you can’t, you mustn’t, come _on.”_

“Oh my God,” John gasps, sliding halfway out and back in.

John’s hands are on Sherlock’s shoulders, thumbs rubbing circles in his muscles. Sherlock still wishes he were on his back so he could see more, _observe_. But this is good, the feeling and listening.

Right now, Sherlock is feeling a bead of sweat trickling down the length of his spine. He’s feeling the sweet stretch of muscles in his inner thighs, because he’s forcing them wider than they’re used to going. He’s feeling John’s hands dropping down onto his, pinning them to the mattress and tangling their fingers together. He’s feeling John burying his face in his hair and breathing against his scalp.

All these things pale in comparison to the intense, white-hot sensation of John’s cock coming in just right, lighting fire to his synapses and flooding his throat with more sounds than he has air to make. He’s past talking already, though John isn’t quite yet.

“Beautiful,” he pants, kissing the back of Sherlock’s neck. “If I could just be as good as you’re beautiful and brilliant and mad--”

Sherlock tears one hand off of the mattress and starts pumping it up and down his cock. John wraps his hand around it, following as Sherlock leads.

“Come on, love, that’s it--”

There is a brief moment while John is coming inside him during which Sherlock feels nothing and everything. There is a dizzying sensation of being too small for everything he needs to be and touch and know, before it tips over and catches, every cell combusting, fire blazing through his systems.

He is not out of his body for long. He collapses onto his side. John drops down beside him with a sigh. Sherlock rolls over, reaches his long arms out, pulls John flush against him and puts his lips on the scar.

It is five minutes before John is sure what the wetness on his shoulder is.

He turns his head halfway round. “Hey,” he says, justifiably concerned. “Are you...”

“I wanted to be glad,” Sherlock blurts out.

“You...”

“You were shot. I wanted to be glad of it. Of course I don’t enjoy the thought of you being almost killed, and frankly if I ever found the bastard who shot you they’d never find enough pieces of him to bury him according to Muslim tradition, but if you’d never been shot I would’ve never met you. So I wanted to be glad of it.” Sherlock thinks John is pretending not to notice the tears now, for which he is thankful.

“And you’re not.”

Sherlock does not respond. The question doesn’t merit it.

John waits for him to still before he rolls over and kisses him for a very long time. That much is good. Everything is, everything that means John is still here, with Sherlock.

And he will do anything to keep that.


End file.
